Tag Archives: cabrera

So there have been several injuries this season of note and while it doesn’t really FEEL like it’s a lot of guys going down, the talent of the players who have gotten hurt in recent weeks has been what is more of the story. Here are some guys who have gone down in the last few weeks and what their timetable is for return to form.

-Shohei Ohtani, the two-way Japanese phenom for the Angels, has a partially torn UCL, which almost always requires Tommy John surgery, which would end his 2018 season and possibly his 2019 season as well. The Angels are holding out hope that it doesn’t come to Tommy John and they are even considering continuing to use him as a DH while he recovers from the surgery. That sounds like a REALLY bad idea. While I get that Anaheim might feel a little desperate since they have a legitimately good team this year that is contending for a playoff spot in a VERY tough AL West, you have to learn from the mistake the Washington Redskins made with Robert Griffin III in 2013. RG3 was rushed back from a torn ACL in the postseason to play week 1 and all of his elusiveness was sapped away and his flaws as a passer were amplified, thus destroying his once promising career. You could be facing a similar situation with Ohtani. Ohtani has been very successful in his first couple months in the States, slashing .289/.372/.535 with 6 homers and 20 RBI in 43 games as a hitter and carries a 4-1 record with a 3.10 ERA while striking out over 11 batters per 9 innings as a pitcher, both very good performances. There hasn’t been a player who was both a high-caliber pitcher and hitter since Babe Ruth. Don’t fuck this up, Anaheim. Let him recover. You risk destroying this man’s career by rushing him back before he’s ready. UCL’s are nothing to screw around with, swinging a bat can be just as damaging as throwing a baseball and since Ohtani bats lefty, it will be his right (throwing) arm that does the bulk of the swing and therefore takes the brunt of the pressure. Just bite the bullet and try and make a move at the deadline to compensate for the loss. I hear the Mets may make Jacob deGrom available. If you rush Ohtani back before he’s ready, you could risk an RG3 situation in which a phenomenal talent gets destroyed because you weren’t patient enough to let him recover. Do the right thing, Angels.

-Tigers first baseman and 2-time AL MVP Miguel Cabrera is out for the remainder of the 2018 season after undergoing bicep surgery, which upsets me for a number of reasons, the main of which being that Miggy is one of my favorite players in baseball even as his skills start to decline with age. However this could be a blessing in disguise for Detroit. Cabrera was slashing .301/.394/.451 in 37 games played (he had another DL stint earlier this season) with 3 home runs and 22 RBI. While the power numbers aren’t what we’re used to from the future Hall of Famer, he was still a productive hitter in this lineup. The Tigers are sitting in third place in the AL Central at 31-37 as I write this and aren’t nearly bad enough to be in serious contention for another high draft spot. If you’re going to rebuild, you have to be all-in and Miggy hitting well does not help a rebuild. They landed Auburn ace Casey Mize with the top pick in this year’s MLB Draft and he was one of the few prospects I felt had superstar potential. If they hope to land a talent like that again, they really need to hit the tank button. While it does suck to lose an impactful hitter like Miguel Cabrera, it can be potentially beneficial for the future of this franchise as they stockpile high draft picks.

-While Mookie Betts did return from the DL after missing 14 games due to a hip injury, the Red Sox superstar hasn’t looked quite at 100% in his first couple games back and I think that the team could afford to give him some more rest every now and then as he attempts to return to the form that was dominating baseball for the first two months of the season. Despite the recent DL stint, Mookie has garnered the most votes in the first All Star ballot update by slashing .354/.431/.735 and hitting 17 home runs and driving in 37 RBI while continuing to play the best right field in baseball. However in his absence, the Red Sox went a decent 8-6, showing that the team can win without their superstar. They still have guys like the deadly JD Martinez and the suddenly red-hot Andrew Benintendi, so I think giving Mookie more frequent breathers to make sure he gets to 100% would be most beneficial to this team’s long-term goals.

-Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka injured his hammy running the bases and had to hit the DL and I’m sorry, but his happens far too often when American League pitchers have to hit in National League stadiums. Yankees fans should be especially weary of this after what happened to Chien-Ming Wang a decade ago. Wang was absolutely dominant for the pinstripes but after hurting himself running the bases in Houston, he was never the same and it destroyed his career. If ever there was a reason to install the DH throughout Major League Baseball, this would be a big one. Pitchers aren’t focused at all on their hitting (unless they are Shohei Ohtani) and the AL ones only ever have to hit on the rare occasion they pitch in an NL ballpark, which is maybe two or three times a season for each starter. Even then they don’t expect to get on base so when they do they’re totally unprepared to actually run bases, which is an important part of the game if you hadn’t noticed so they can’t exactly dog it out there. This leads to leg injuries like the one suffered by Tanaka. I don’t know, man, I mean what other professional sport are you going to find that has such different rules depending on what league/conference they’re in? I get the tradition thing, really, I do. But MLB has already installed video replay systems to overturn calls, why can’t they just make the DH rule universal? I enjoy AL baseball more than NL baseball simply for the fact that I don’t have to watch these pitchers half-ass their at bats because they know they’re trash at the plate anyway and nobody expects them to get a hit.

That’s going to do it for this injury update, let me know what you think of the recent trends in injuries in the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter @jimwyman10.

So a couple stories I want to bring to light here. First off, former LSU runningback and potential first round pick Derrius Guice was asked by an unknown NFL team during his Combine interview a couple of very inappropriate questions, which Guice claims was to provoke him and get a feel for his response. The anonymous team asked Guice if he was gay and if his mom was a hooker. I can understand the reasoning behind asking these questions, as you’re trying to gauge how this guy’s going to deal with the media, but you have to use better judgment here. Asking if someone is gay is totally inappropriate and asking someone if their mother is a hooker is downright disrespectful. They should’ve learned when the Dolphins did that to Dez Bryant in his Combine interview. I remember I was in Canton, Ohio to see the Pro Football Hall of Fame with my mom and she went for a walk outside of our hotel. When she got back, she told me that some guy had driven up to her and asked if she was “working.” I’m not a confrontational person, but I was ready to throw haymakers at this dude that I’d never met so kudos to Guice for keeping his cool. Also, the Kansas City Royals held an anti-porn seminar for the players and coaches, most likely to protect the wrists on their throwing hands when they’re away from their wives because athletes definitely stay faithful to their wives on road trips. That’s really all I have to say on that because otherwise I can’t see any reason to be against something that brings people so much joy. Also, the Rams acquired another corner in a trade, this time landing Aqib Talib from the Broncos. So basically with Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib the Rams may have the shit talking-est cornerback duo in NFL history. Anyways, on to the Mets for this edition of 30 Clubs in 30 Days.

It feels like so long ago that the Mets were good even though they just had one bad season. They won the NL pennant in 2015, losing the World Series in 5 games to the Royals, and they lost the NL Wild Card game against the Giants in 2016. But in 2017 the wheels seemed to fall off, causing the Mets machine to fall off the wheels, crash and burn, and kill everybody inside as injuries ravaged the team. But when healthy, this has the potential to be a scary team. Here’s how I’m projecting their lineup to look in 2018.

1. Asdrubal Cabrera-2B

2. Michael Conforto-CF

3. Yoenis Cespedes-LF

4. Jay Bruce-RF

5. Todd Frazier-3B

6. Adrian Gonzalez-1B

7. Travis d’Arnaud-C

8. Amed Rosario-SS

9. Pitcher’s Spot

There’s a lot of talent in this lineup, particularly in the middle of the order. Michael Conforto broke out in 2017, earning an All Star nod by hitting .279 with 27 home runs and was worth 4.4 WAR. He will likely miss the start of the season due to injury (shocker) and it will probably be defensive wizard Juan Lagares in centerfield. Yoenis Cespedes is a guy I really liked but he didn’t seem to hit his stride until he was traded to the Mets, as his bat was what really propelled them to the 2015 NL pennant. Come to think of it, good things tend to happen to teams involved in a Cespedes trade. The A’s landed Jon Lester from the Red Sox, the Red Sox landed Rick Porcello from the Tigers, and the Tigers landed Michael Fulmer from the Mets. Go figure. But despite missing half the 2017 season due to injury, Cespedes was on pace for an MVP-caliber season. He was hitting .292 with 17 home runs and 42 RBI, which in a full 162-game season would be 34 home runs and 84 RBI. Jay Bruce is returning to the Mets after they traded him to the Indians at last year’s trade deadline. Bruce was terrific for the Mets, hitting 29 home runs and driving in 75 RBI in just 103 games with the club. Frazier and Gonzalez both struggled last season but they both have powerful bats and can cause some serious damage to a pitching staff if taken lightly.

The Mets may have the single most injury-prone pitching rotation I’ve ever seen. It seems like within the last two seasons every member of their 4-headed monster of Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, and Steven Matz all have missed significant time due to injury, the latter two’s effectiveness having been harmed the most. While Syndergaard looks like he’s fully recovered from the lat injury that sidelined him for nearly all of 2017 (his fastball was touching 101 mph in his first Spring Training outing), the rest of the rotation isn’t so sure. DeGrom was solid last season, going 15-10 with a 3.53 ERA and striking out over 10 batters per 9 innings, but Harvey and Matz left a lot to be desired. Matz had an ERA over 6 in 13 starts while Harvey was better known for having not shown up to a game due to being hung over after drinking his sorrows away after seeing his ex girlfriend, supermodel Adriana Lima, hanging around with Julian Edelman. So the only guys I’m not concerned with are Syndergaard and deGrom but Matz and Harvey make me nervous. Again, assuming everybody’s healthy.

The Mets bullpen has some guys with really electric stuff. In fact, the only regular member of last year’s bullpen with a K/9 rate below 8 was Josh Edgin and he’s now a member of the Baltimore Orioles. The closer for the Mets is Jeurys Familia, however he’s also coming off an injury-plagued season, as he only managed to pitch 24.2 innings in 2017. However when healthy, he’s amongst the best closers in the game. Should he struggle to return to health, though, the Mets have AJ Ramos, whom they acquired from the Marlins last trade deadline. Ramos was an All Star as the Marlins’ closer in 2016, though he struggled with his command upon joining the Mets. He struck out over 11 batters per 9 innings but also walked over 5 batters per 9. He’s going to need to drop that second number significantly if he hopes to earn new manager and pitching guru Mickey Callaway’s trust. Newly-acquired reliever Anthony Swarzak was a revelation last season with the White Sox and Brewers last season, pitching to an ERA of 2.33 with over 10.5 K/9 in his age-31 season. Whether he repeats that success remains to be seen but if last season was any indicator, the Mets have themselves a reliable 8th-inning option.

Overall, I don’t think the Mets are nearly as bad as last season’s record might indicate but they NEED to limit the injuries if they’re going to have any hope of competing for the playoffs. When fully healthy, I think this team is good enough to compete with the Nationals for the NL East crown. However that seems to be asking a lot out of them as of late and I’m not so sure they’re going to be able to overcome these shortcomings this season. However the NL East is pretty weak right now so I don’t think it’ll be too hard for the Mets to come in second place in the division, in fact I do think they’ll be healthy enough to compete for a Wild Card spot, though I think they will fall short.

Projected Finish: 84-78, 2nd in NL East

That’s going to do it for this edition of 30 Clubs in 30 Days. I feel like I wrote this blog twice (that’s because I did. I was halfway through my first edition when my computer freaked out on me and I lost my entire draft. Though to be honest, I feel like this version is way better than the one that got deleted). Join me tomorrow when I preview the New York Yankees, who on paper have the most dangerous 3-4 combo since Ruth-Gehrig. Let me know what you think of the Mets’ chances in the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter @jimwyman10. Also, if you’re looking for something to do at 3 PM as you get ready for Spring Break (or continue partying during Spring Break), I’ll be on the call for a college baseball game between Indiana and Pacific on BTN Plus.

I’m sad to see that Hall of Fame Bills quarterback Jim Kelly’s cancer has returned once again. I can’t imagine what his family must be going through right now but if he can win 4 straight AFC championships, beating cancer again will be a breeze. On to happier news, we enter Day 11 of 30 Clubs in 30 Days with the Detroit Tigers. Let’s get to it.

If ever there were a team in baseball that was in a rebuild, it’s the Tigers. They’ve practically gutted the team that started Opening Day for them. Gone are Justin Verlander, JD Martinez, Ian Kinsler, Justin Upton, and pretty much anybody else who made the Tigers one of the potentially more dangerous teams in baseball. However they were going nowhere fast so they decided now was as good a time as ever to commence with the rebuild, which got off to a pretty good start as far as rebuilds go as they managed to finish tied for the worst record in baseball at 64-98 and won the tie breaker over the Giants for the #1 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft. It’s a pretty thin Major League roster for the 2018 season, as you can see from their projected lineup.

1. Leonys Martin-CF

2. Nicholas Castellanos-RF

3. Miguel Cabrera-1B

4. Victor Martinez-DH

5. Jeimer Candelario-3B

6. Mikie Mahtook-LF

7. James McCann-C

8. Dixon Machado-2B

9. Jose Iglesias-SS

The only guys really of note in this lineup are Cabrera and Martinez and they appear to be nearing the end of the line. Cabrera had his worst season in 2017, as he hit .249 with 16 home runs and 60 RBI and was worth -0.2 WAR. Granted, it may not have entirely been his fault, as according to a “study” I did, Cabrera was the unluckiest hitter in the game last season. So perhaps 2017 was a fluke for the future Hall of Famer. Victor Martinez also struggled last season as he battled injuries, as he hit .255 with 10 homers and 47 RBI in 107 games for a -1.1 WAR. In fact it was the second time in 3 seasons the 39 year-old was worth a negative WAR. However they’re also the only two hitters in this lineup that can be deemed as dangerous even if they’re practically shells of their former selves at this point. Nicholas Castellanos is a guy that could be a positive for this lineup, as he had a breakout season in 2017. He hit .272 with 26 home runs and 101 RBI. He was only worth 1.8 WAR, however that could be due in fact to his poor defense in right field, which could be excusable given the fact he’s still learning the position. He came up as a third baseman and played there for the first couple years of his career. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot to be excited about in this Tigers lineup. It could also be a rough time at the plate for the foreseeable future as the Tigers don’t have a single hitter in MLB.com’s Top 100 Prospects.

The Tigers REALLY struggled on the mound in 2017, finishing with the worst team ERA in the Majors (5.36). The only real bright spot amongst pitchers who finished the season with the team was Michael Fulmer, who is basically the default ace right now. Last season, Fulmer went 10-12 with a 3.83 ERA and was worth 3.5 WAR in 25 starts. His strikeout rate was pretty poor, as his 6.23 K/9 was 7th worst in baseball, however he showed good control, as his walk rate of 2.19 BB/9 was 11th best in baseball. He was also excellent about keeping balls in the yard, as his HR/9 rate of 0.71 was 2nd best in all of baseball (Washington’s Stephen Strasburg was best at 0.67). So despite the fact that he doesn’t miss a lot of bats, Fulmer does a good job of not giving hitters great pitches to hit. After him, though, there’s a lot of uncertainty. Jordan Zimmermann has been a disaster since signing with the Tigers after a successful career in Washington, last season being particularly bad as he had an ERA of 6.08. Had he thrown 2 more innings to qualify for the Major League minimum, that would’ve given him the worst ERA in baseball by half a run (Matt Moore’s 5.52 was the worst among qualifying pitchers). New additions from the Astros Mike Fiers and Francisco Liriano could provide some value in the rotation, but Liriano barely appeared for Houston late in the season while Fiers got bumped out of the rotation by younger pitchers.

The Tigers’ bullpen is pretty rough. The only guy who had a solid season last year was Shane Greene, who will be inheriting the closer’s role. He had an ERA of 2.66 last year however his FIP was 3.84, suggesting that his defense was helping out his overall numbers. He did manage to strike out nearly 10 batters per 9 innings and he was able to strand 84% of inherited runners. However he lacks experience in the closer’s role as he only has 11 career saves, though looking at the rest of Detroit’s options in the bullpen, he’s really the only legitimate candidate they have right now. Their only other quality relief pitchers, Travis Wood and Alex Wilson, have a combined 8 saves between them in their careers and neither was particularly good last season. Wilson had an ERA of 4.50 while Wood’s was a whopping 6.80. It’s not even a guarantee Wood makes the Tigers’ Opening Day roster. After that, it’s going to be a bunch of experimental guys. It wouldn’t shock me in the slightest to see some of Detroit’s top pitching prospects such as Franklin Perez, Matt Manning, Alex Faedo, and Beau Burrows appear in the Motor City at some point in 2018.

Overall, the Tigers are going to suck, but that’s kind of the point. The only exciting players on this team, Cabrera and Martinez, are 34 and 39 years old, respectively, and they may be past the points in their careers where they can be of serious value to the team. There are far too many question marks on the mound and I’ll be very surprised if the Tigers don’t end up in the cellar of the AL Central this season, perhaps even for all of Major League Baseball. However I do believe there is one team that will have a worse season than the Tigers, but they’re not due for another few days in my 30 Clubs in 30 Days series.

Projected Record: 64-98, Last in AL Central

That’s going to do it for this edition of 30 Clubs in 30 Days. Join me tomorrow where I transition from the worst team in the American League to the very best. We’ve got the defending champion Houston Astros on tap tomorrow as they look to try and defend their first ever World Series title. Let me know what you think of the Tigers’ chances in the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter @jimwyman10.

So I’m sure you’ve seen the stats on certain players and thought “this guy can’t be that good, can he?” Or you’ve seen those one-year wonders that never came close to that level of production ever again. A lot of times, you can go back to advanced metrics to try and project who is due for a big breakout season or who might be in for a major decline. I’m going to try and do that here by using statistics to determine who the luckiest and unluckiest hitters in Major League Baseball are. Now I will preface this by saying that this may not be entirely accurate, as I have no way of gaining stats such as “bad hops that turn sure outs into base hits” or “plays where the defender robbed you of a base hit” unless I go back and literally watch every single at bat of every player in the Majors. That’s just not happening, I’ve got stuff to do. I will however, use the stats that I have gained from Fangraphs.com to try and find the best way to paint a picture for you as to who is the luckiest hitter in the game. Ideally, there would be a way for me to combine all of the following stats I will be using into one encompassing number, but my skills as a statistician just aren’t at that level. I will more or less be taking each stat that I think is important in determining luck and giving you the players who fall into these categories. So without further ado, let’s dive into the numbers.

BABIP

Avisail Garcia had a career year in 2017, could he be due for regression? (photo credit: Detroit Free Press)

BABIP stands for “Batting Average on Balls In Play” and basically measures what a player’s batting average would be if you were to take their strikeouts and home runs out of the equation. This is probably the best stat we have towards measuring luck as it shows how often guys are getting hits when defenders have a chance at making a play on the ball. Here are the Top 10 players in the 2017 season according to BABIP:

Avisail Garcia-CHW: .392

Charlie Blackmon-COL: .371

Jose Altuve-HOU: .370

Tommy Pham-STL: .368

Tim Beckham-TBR/BAL: .365

Domingo Santana-MIL: .363

Chris Taylor-UTIL-LAD: .361

Aaron Judge-NYY: .357

Marcell Ozuna-MIA: .355

Dee Gordon-MIA: .354

Now a few of these guys I can safely say is due to skill at the plate, namely Blackmon and Altuve (my two MVP picks for this season) because they’ve been ranking highly on these lists for some time now. It’s guys like Garcia, Pham, and Beckham who make me nervous just simply because I hadn’t seen production like this out of them prior to 2017. Now for the Top 10 Worst BABIPs in the majors this season:

Rougned Odor-TEX: .224

Todd Frazier-CHW/NYY: .226

Curtis Granderson-NYM/LAD: .228

Maikel Franco-PHI: .234

Jose Bautista-TOR: .239

Ian Kinsler-DET: .244

Scott Schebler-CIN: .248

Albert Pujols-ANA: .249

Joey Gallo-TEX: .250

Yangervis Solarte-SDP: .258

Todd Frazier has been very high on this list for the last few years now yet he is still a productive player, being worth a WAR of 3.0 this season, which is above average. You’ll also notice some other big names on this list, such as Jose Bautista, Ian Kinsler, and future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols. Pujols’ production has been on a steep decline ever since he signed a huge contract with the Angels back in 2012 so his inclusion isn’t unfathomable here. It’s guys like Kinsler being on this list that surprised me.

Quality of Contact

Joey Gallo was about as all-or-nothing a hitter as you will find in 2017 (photo credit: Fan Rag Sports)

Typically when a ball is hit hard, it suggests that the hitter got a good piece of it or squared it up really well. We all see those plays where a guy absolutely smokes the ball and it’s hit right at the third baseman for a quick out, which affects their batting average the same way as a strikeout despite not missing the ball. This is an imperfect tool because sometimes, you get guys like Giancarlo Stanton who are just flat out stronger than everyone and could hit a hard hit ball on a check swing. A ball is considered hard hit when it travels at roughly 100 mph off the bat. Below is a list of the guys who hit the ball hardest in 2017. I want you to keep in mind that the best hitters have contact rates of about 40-45-15:

Player Hard Contact Medium Contact Soft Contact

Joey Gallo-TEX 46.4% 38.9% 14.7%

Aaron Judge-NYY 45.3% 43.5% 11.2%

Paul Goldschmidt-ARI 44.3% 44.3% 11.3%

Corey Seager-LAD 44% 43.1% 12.9%

Nicholas Castellanos-DET 43.4% 45.1% 11.5%

Cody Bellinger-LAD 43% 43% 14%

Miguel Cabrera-DET 42.5% 47.5% 9.9%

Matt Carpenter-STL 42.2% 45.7% 12.1%

Khris Davis-OAK 42.1% 44.4% 13.5%

Chris Davis-BAL 41.5% 45.7% 12.8%

One thing I want to draw your attention to on this list is Joey Gallo. Yes, he hit the ball hard the most consistently, but he also had the highest percentage of softly hit balls among guys in the top 10 as well as the lowest percentage of medium hit balls in this group. Gallo was a go-big-or-go-home type of swinger this season, as also evidenced by his 41 home runs and 196 strikeouts on the season. Here are the guys who hit the ball softly the most frequently in 2017:

Player Hard Contact Medium Contact Soft Contact

Jose Peraza-CIN 21.4% 52% 26.6%

Jose Reyes-NYM 26.7% 47.2% 26.1%

Manuel Margot-SDP 25.4% 48.7% 25.9%

Yangervis Solarte-SDP 31.1% 43.8% 25.2%

Billy Hamilton-CIN 16% 59% 25%

Dee Gordon-MIA 16.1% 59.2% 24.7%

Didi Gregorius-NYY 23.1% 52.4% 24.4%

Odubel Herrera-NYY 29.4 % 46.3% 24.4%

Cesar Hernandez-PHI 22.1% 54.4% 23.5%

Todd Frazier-CHW/NYY 32.2% 44.6% 23.2%

A few guys on this list won’t be considered for “luckiest” or “unluckiest” because a lot of times this soft contact is a result of them playing to their speed. Guys like Billy Hamilton and Dee Gordon often drop down bunts because they are freakishly fast, so using their soft contact against them isn’t really fair in this case. You may also notice a couple guys in the top 10 softest hit balls who were also in the top 10 worst BABIP: Todd Frazier and Yangervis Solarte, so you can pretty much rule these two out for consideration for “unluckiest.” They just aren’t hitting the ball hard and it’s hurting them.

Pop Up %

Had Freddie Freeman not missed a large chunk of the season due to injury, he may have been a leading candidate for NL MVP (photo credit: AJC.com)

Pop ups can be killers and often happens when a guy tries to get the ball airborne and dips his back shoulder a little too much. I often find that pop ups can be a good indicator of a guy who is due for a big home run season, because usually when the ball is popped up, the hitter got a little too far under the ball. And when they hit those balls that are skied in the air with terrific hang time, you can probably guess that if they squared it up properly, it’d be going a long way at a more horizontal level. It will just take a little bit of tweaking in their swing to turn those pop-ups into bombs. I must also clarify that a ball is considered a pop up as long as it remains in the infield or fieldable by an infielder. Here are the guys who popped out most frequently:

Todd Frazier-CHW/NYY-18.5%

Jose Reyes-NYM-18.1%

Tommy Joseph-PHI-18.1%

Byron Buxton-MIN-17.7%

Yangervis Solarte-SDP-17.4%

Giancarlo Stanton-MIA-16.9%

Alex Bregman-HOU-16.7%

Jose Bautista-TOR-16.5%

Maikel Franco-PHI-16.3%

Jonathan Schoop-BAL-16%

I should also note that Schoop was number 11 in soft contact. This surprised me, especially considering the fact that he hit 32 home runs this season. But once again, Frazier and Solarte appear on a list they don’t want to appear on for futility. I was surprised at first to see Stanton on this list, but then I got to thinking about it and it started to make sense as, considering the guy was chasing 61 home runs, he probably hit a few pop ups trying to get to that number. Here we have the guys who hit the fewest pop ups in 2017:

Freddie Freeman-ATL-0%

Joey Votto-CIN-0.5%

Shin-Soo Choo-TEX-0.9%

Nicholas Castellanos-DET-1.6%

Domingo Santana-MIL-2.1%

Miguel Cabrera-DET-2.5%

Christian Yelich-MIA-2.5%

Buster Posey-SFG-2.8%

Chris Davis-BAL-2.9%

Dee Gordon-MIA-2.9%

Freddie Freaking Freeman didn’t hit a single popup this season. That’s just unbelievable to me. That’s a guy who is totally fundamentally sound with his swing on every single hack he takes. Not surprised to see Dee Gordon on this list. As a guy who bunted for more hits than anybody else (he had 18 bunt hits, next closest was Buxton at 11), I’m sure he was trying to hit the ball on the ground as much as humanly possible. This is how I imagine a discussion between Gordon and Marlins manager Don Mattingly would go.

This is the last stat we will consider when trying to determine luck. There really isn’t a definitive way to consider a line drive except by the eye test. I’m not going over every single swing to clarify information, so I trust the guys at Fangraphs have these numbers up to par. Typically a line drive is affiliated with hitting the ball perfectly. Here is a list of the guys who had the highest percentage of line drives in 2017:

Daniel Murphy-WAS-27.6%

Domingo Santana-MIL-27.4%

Miguel Cabrera-DET-27.3%

Jed Lowrie-OAK-27.1%

Shin-Soo Choo-TEX-25%

Joe Mauer-MIN-24.9%

Chase Headley-NYY-24.9%

Corey Seager-LAD-24.8%

DJ LeMahieu-COL-24.7%

Nicholas Castellanos-DET-24.5%

Not surprised to see Daniel Murphy on this list. The guy hits lasers and ever since 2015 he’s been one of the most consistently solid hitters in the game. Chase Headley was a bit of a surprise for me, I always knew he was more of a doubles guy but he’d been having his struggles with the Yankees this season. Now we have the worst at hitting line drives in 2017:

Hunter Pence-SFG-13.4%

Javy Baez-CHC-15.4%

Manny Machado-BAL-15.8%

Giancarlo Stanton-MIA-16%

Mark Trumbo-BAL-16.1%

Yasiel Puig-LAD-16.1%

Scott Schebler-CIN-16.2%

Rougned Odor-TEX-16.3%

Yangervis Solarte-SDP-16.4%

Carlos Beltran-HOU-16.4%

Hunter Pence had the lowest line drive rate by a WIDE margin, a full 2% below Javy Baez for the next lowest rate. Yet again, we find Solarte on a list that he REALLY doesn’t want to be on. It was well documented throughout the season that Manny Machado struggled and we may now have the reason why: he’s not hitting line drives, third worst rate in the majors.

And now the moment this article has been building up to: the Luckiest and Unluckiest hitters in baseball for the 2017 season. I don’t have a clear-cut singular number to round all of these stats into, but I tried to find the guys who found themselves ranking highly the most frequently in these specific categories.

Luckiest Hitter:

Eric Hosmer was the luckiest hitter in 2017 (photo credit: MLB.com)

Eric Hosmer-1B-Kansas City Royals

This may have come as a bit of a surprise to some of you because Hosmer didn’t appear in any of the Top 10’s for the chosen stats. However he wasn’t far off from making all of them. Hosmer slashed .318/.385/.498 with 25 home runs and 94 RBI, all really impressive numbers for a guy set to become a free agent. However, those numbers were inflated by a .351 BABIP, 14th best in the Majors out of 144 qualifiers. He also was 15th in soft-hit balls at 21.8% and was 116th in hard hit balls at 29.5%. He was 49th in pop-up rate at 7.2%, which isn’t too bad, it’s right around average, and his line drive rate was 22.2%, which ranked 36th. So for any team that is ready to hand Hosmer a $100M contract this offseason, I say buyer beware, he’s due for regression.

I knew there had to be some explanation as to why Miggy was having such a shitty season. Cabrera’s slash line was .249/.329/.399 with 16 home runs and 60 RBI. It seemed to be the symptoms of getting older (despite remaining one of the most baby-faced players in the game) but it turns out, the baseball gods hadn’t been doing Cabrera any favors. His BABIP was .292, which was 97th in the Majors out of 144 qualifying players, his line drive percentage was third best at 27.3% and his pop up percentage was 6th best at 2.5%. Only Justin Turner hit the ball softly less frequently (9.8%) than Cabrera did (9.9%). Cabrera also hit the ball 7th hardest this season at a 42.5% rate. While the lower home run totals may be concerning, I expect Cabrera to have a bounce back year in 2018. He’s a much better hitter than what his base stats showed this year and these advanced stats proved it to me that his 2017 season was probably just an aberration.

Thank you for bearing with me being a gigantic super nerd with all these stats. I had a lot of fun doing this and it answered a lot of questions for me. I’ve always had a soft spot towards guys with shit luck simply because that was me in high school. I used to hit the ball right at guys so often that I eventually gave up and stopped swinging the bat in the hopes of getting walked. It worked for a little while (I had a two-game stretch where I got walked 7 times in 8 plate appearances. The one appearance that I didn’t walk was when I swung at the first pitch. I hit a hard ground ball right at the shortstop.). Do you want to see more blogs like these? Did you absolutely despise it because you hate nerds? Let me know in the comments section below or on Facebook or Twitter @jimwyman10.